THE SIGN

The sign attached to the cross of Christ read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews". 

What a fascinating "detail"! 

And not only because it was chocked full of the profoundest irony.

But also because Pilate's act rings true to human nature.

Some people assume the "King of the Jews" sign was meant to mock Jesus. But John tells us that it was Pilate himself who ordered the sign to be painted and then nailed into place. 

And remember - Pilate was convinced Jesus was innocent. He only handed Him over to be crucified because the Chief Priests threatened to go over Pilate's head to Caesar if he dared to allow a man claiming to be king to go unpunished. Pilate surely wasn't intending to mock Jesus.

It seems much more likely that the sign was meant as Pilate's passive aggressive finger in the eye of the Chief Priests. They had found and exploited Pilate's weakness - his fear of the waves they could make. So he found theirs - their rage over Jesus' claims to divinity. And then he poked them there. 

Hard.

And the message was written in all three of the major languages spoken in Jerusalem, so that none of the crowd would miss it.

In the midst of an execution he wanted no part of, Pilate found a way to get under the Chief Priests' skin. 

The Chief Priests came to him to complain, of course. They wanted him to revise the sign so that it said clearly "This man CLAIMED TO BE the King of the Jews". 

Pilate must have taken some amount of pleasure in dismissing them: "What I have written, I have written." 

Still, a rather small triumph for a man unwilling to stand his ground and risk his reputation to do what was right.